<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Black, Grey, Gold by AlphaGheist, Falcolmreynolds</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24486508">Black, Grey, Gold</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlphaGheist/pseuds/AlphaGheist'>AlphaGheist</a>, <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Falcolmreynolds/pseuds/Falcolmreynolds'>Falcolmreynolds</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Magnus Archives (Podcast)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>American setting, Body Horror, F/F, Gen, Original Characters - Freeform, Pre S5, Swearing, The Usher Foundation (The Magnus Archives), Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 04:07:04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>19,831</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24486508</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlphaGheist/pseuds/AlphaGheist, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Falcolmreynolds/pseuds/Falcolmreynolds</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A Hunter, a Weaver, and a Watcher walk into a bar. Uh, I mean, into a potentially world-threatening situation. Whoops! Something is distorting Hunters and attacking other avatars and they need to know who and why, before it gets really out of hand. Looks like it's the responsibility of these three to step in, work together, and try to prevent a catastrophe of unseen proportions...</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Riley Williams/Laelia Corbeld</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Prologue</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>
    <span>I am angry.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>I was great, once. I was respected. I was praised, worshipped even. I was… so alive.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Alive, with the deep thrum of my own soul-power, reshaping the world before me, underneath a blue sky. My heart burned like a miniature sun. I sang, I screamed, I roared. I killed. I won. I was greater than any before me, and I was greater than any came after me. I survived for so long. I returned, an angry and vengeful spirit, to strike down those who thought they had killed me time and time again. I was an ever-approaching ghost, unstoppable, inescapable, inevitable. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>I was killed, not by those I fought, but by those I fought for. Tossed aside like an empty bottle on a roadway. Disrespected. Worthless. None of those precious people whom I protected with my own blood and flesh could raise a hand to protect me when my time was up. I was the first and greatest of my name! The progenitor and champion! They gave me bitter accolades and honors, but they didn't really care for me. Everything I ever destroyed for them was preserved where it fell, but I? I was ripped apart and thrown to the scavengers. I do not even have a resting place, no grave to go easily to, even if I wanted to sleep.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Oh, I am angry.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>They wanted me dead… but I have always been able to come back, no matter what devastation was wrought upon me. They will not forget me so easily.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Give me the opportunity to return one last time. Give me the chance to return the… favor that was granted me. Give me back my hellfire.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>I will show the world what anger can do.</span>
  </em>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Out Go the Lights</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>“Birch,” Jonas called, out his office door, “could you come here for a minute?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She’d known it was coming, of course, though she didn’t remember what he wanted. She rolled her eyes. “Be right there,” she shouted back, and set down the papers she was working on alphabetizing, making sure not to let them fall out of order. Jonas was lounging in his office chair when she stepped through the door. “Yes?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Birch, you, um… what happened to that pile of old statements we got in the other day?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh! I organized them already.” </span>
  <em>
    <span>Feign surprise. Then, he will think it was an accident, and when he finds one missing, he’ll just chalk it up to incompetence, and not realize I took it.</span>
  </em>
  <span> “Did… did you need them, still?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes, </span>
  <em>
    <span>actually,</span>
  </em>
  <span> because I hadn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>recorded</span>
  </em>
  <span> any of them yet,” Jonas growled, rubbing one hand over his forehead. Birch blinked, eyes wide, eyebrows raised to show her surprise behind her glasses. “They weren’t ready to be archived.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh! I’m so sorry. I thought - I’ll go pick them back out, right away. I’m sure I can remember which ones -”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, don’t bother. I’ll have Abby do it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Birch wilted. “Right, sir,” she said, nodding. “Sorry about that…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s fine. Just - try not to do it again, okay?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ll do my best.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She left Jonas’ office and headed back to hers, shutting the door and locking it behind her. “Right,” she muttered, picking the papers up. “Back to this. Oh, wait, no, I can - I’ve got some time, I think. Though I should take a look…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Birch paused and let her eyes unfocus, Looking forwards, through the paintings in the halls, through her coworkers’ eyes. If anybody was going to interrupt her in the next hour, she wanted to know about it; if not, she could get a statement and record it. A real one. She hadn’t in a while, and felt a little shaky around the edges, like a television image that wasn’t quite as clear as it could be.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>For a moment, her mind was filled with images of the others, going about their business. But  then, suddenly, from a portrait of one of the rich old men who funded the Foundation in the main lobby, she Saw the wavering image of something in the future - a vast, sharp shape, too-wide-too-long mouth open to show far too many teeth, spiky fur and blood and claws like knives, tearing holes in the walls and shattering the tiles.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She blinked her eyes open, stunned and afraid. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Where?</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>The knowledge manifested in her mind. </span>
  <em>
    <span>It will come in through the west-facing wall, near to the main door, the big glass one. It was going to head for the door, but it will instead panic and go through the wall, to get into the building sooner.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Why?</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>It’s running from something.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>What does it want in here?</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Safety. It’s going to head for the darkness. It thinks the darkness is safe.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Birch paused. I’ll give you darkness, she thought, narrowing her eyes. I’ll give you your supposed safety.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But first, she had to get everyone out of the thing’s way. </span>
  <em>
    <span>When will it be?</span>
  </em>
  <span> She thought, wondering.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And just like that - just like always - she just Knew. </span>
  <em>
    <span>I have six and a half minutes.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>That… was not a lot of time. She frowned, trying to think of a plan. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Where it will it go once inside? How can I stay out of its way?</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>It will head for the darkest places it can find. It will head downwards, into the Archive, and it will destroy anything in its path. It will make a detour if it sees anything that it can kill, and it </span>
  </em>
  <span>will</span>
  <em>
    <span> try to kill. Its desire to hunt and slay is stronger than its fear of whatever chases it.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>So they had to hide from it. The way she received her answers, her knowledge, wasn’t in words - that was just how she thought of them. It was less words and more just… knowing. It was simple - one second she didn’t know things, the next second she did. It was suddenly as if she’d always known it, as if it were a fact in her mind as concrete as her own name.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She had to get everybody out of the way, and well-hidden, before this thing showed up. Down in the archives and the artifact storage wouldn’t work; that’s where this thing would go. This thing. What was it? </span>
  <em>
    <span>A Hunter, but wrong.</span>
  </em>
  <span> She didn’t know what that meant, and had to catch her breath after Knowing that and press her fingers against her temples, pushing away the sudden pounding pain in her head.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>How to get them out of the way. She only had six minutes. The fire alarm would be a bad bet; the thing would see them outside and just make a quick detour to kill them all before heading into the Foundation building. No, that wouldn’t work.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>On top of that, she couldn’t just call them all up and say “there’s a monster headed for the building, we all need to hide!” because nobody would believe her. And she didn’t want them to know about her… unique abilities, either.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her best option was probably to get everyone into Jonas’ office and hide them there. She stood, hurried to the door, and said, “Jonas?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Could you do me a favor?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hmm?” he glanced up, frowning. “What do you need?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I need Abby and London in here. Like, now?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He paused. “I… why?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Um, it’s really important.” </span>
  <em>
    <span>He will believe the need for a meeting over… over what? Over a catastrophic system failure in the labeling system.</span>
  </em>
  <span> “I’ve just read a report on Excel formatting and it’s going to have screwed up every piece of labeling we’ve done in the last two centuries in regards to dates, so, uh… we’re going to have to fix a lot of files if we’ve organized them in Excel. Which I know we have.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, lord,” Jonas muttered, rubbing his hands over his face. “No, alright. Hold on.” He reached over and picked up the archaic black phone on his desk, then tapped the number for London’s office and waited. After a few seconds, he said, “London? Could you come to my office, please? You’re not in trouble. There’s something Birch wants to talk about. Yes, thanks. No. No, you really aren’t in trouble, I promise. It’s nothing bad. You didn’t do anything wrong. Yes, thank you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Just a few minutes left.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“He’ll be along soon,” Jonas said, and rubbed his nose. Then he tried Abby’s office, but she didn’t answer. “She must be down in the archives,” he murmured.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Can we call for her?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jonas paused, as if he were about to say no, and then rolled his eyes. “Sure,” he said. “Sure. We have the intercom for a reason, I guess.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Birch watched, very aware of the time ticking down. Jonas picked up the old phone again and switched it to the intercom in the archives. “Abigail, could you come to my office? We’re having an impromptu meeting.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Minutes. Agonizing minutes. London showed up after two, trotting in, looking baffled. Birch was sitting on the floor against the wall at this point, trying not to show how nervous she was.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What’s going on?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Boring meeting stuff,” Birch said, too quickly. “Normal boring meeting stuff about technology.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, good,” London said, vaguely. “Um… like, shall we?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Waiting on Abby,” Birch told him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Abigail finally showed up after </span>
  <em>
    <span>five full minutes</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Birch nearly had a heart attack when she popped up in the window, beaming, and then opened the door and scooted in.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Good morning!” she said. “What’s going on? I was back near artifact storage, trying to file some stuff.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, good that we caught you, then,” Jonas said. “Apparently there’s a problem with the filing system.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yep,” Birch said, and paused. Jonas looked to her, and paused, raising his eyebrows.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Birch mentioned something about… Excel and dates?” he tried, clearly expecting her to speak. </span>
  <em>
    <span>I didn’t think I’d have to actually talk about any sort of filing system...</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, I heard about that,” Abigail said, and Birch let out a silent sigh of thanks. “I’ve been negating that by not using Excel for a while. Has anybody actually been using it?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I have,” London said, frowning worriedly. “Should I not have been?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ooh, maybe not,” Abigail said, with a wince.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Birch tuned out for a second, grateful that Abigail had a habit of taking control of conversations, and Looked upwards through the portrait again. Immediately she spotted something barrelling towards the Foundation building. As she Watched, it burst through the wall.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The crash was audible even down in the hallway leading to the Archives. She swallowed, eyes going wide, and returned to herself, looking at her coworkers with wide eyes, though she knew they couldn’t actually see her eyes behind her glasses. It didn’t matter; it was the expression as a whole that she needed to portray. “Did you guys hear that?” she said, quietly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Uh, what the hell was that,” London said.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What was what?” Abby frowned.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Birch stood. She moved to the door and locked it, then turned out the light in the office. “You know what,” she said, “I think we should stay in here.” Her pet wasn’t with her at the moment. She wondered if it would be interested in a snack. This monster was going to seek out the darkness, and when it did… she would be waiting for it. </span>
  <em>
    <span>You want Dark? I’ll give you Dark, you wretch. Just go a little further. Away from the light.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>She heard it scream, a high, drawn-out sound, and it went roaring towards the archives. She heard it come close. The others were panicking now.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What is that,” London said, voice going higher pitched with every word. “What is that, what is that, whatisthatwhatisthatwhatisthat-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We should stay down and quiet,” Birch said. “Whatever it is, it doesn’t sound friendly.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, god, oh no,” Abby said, eyes wide. “Oh, man. Is that a person, or an animal, or…?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That doesn’t sound like any animal I’ve ever heard,” Jonas said, narrowing his eyes. </span>
  <em>
    <span>That’s because it’s not. At least, not in the way you would know an animal. I know for certain it’s not human anymore...</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“I think we should stay down and stay quiet,” she repeated, and this time they seemed to hear her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, sure, okay,” London said, and nobody moved until Birch scooted behind Jonas’ desk and crouched down. Everyone followed her, and they huddled in the darkness.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Not a moment too soon. She couldn’t see much of it, really, just a quick glimpse out the window. What she did catch was a roiling mass of claws and fur and teeth, too many teeth, jagged and whirling, sharp and elongated and twisted. It roared by - she heard it shake the door - and scraped along the walls, crashing back and forth down the hallway, until it burst out into the archives and was gone from them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What the fuck,” London whispered, his eyes wide.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Shh!” Birch muttered.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But now… now it was her turn. The monster was there. The monster was in the depths of the Archives, and her co-workers were safe. There was nobody else down here; nobody was ever down in the archive, as most people didn’t like it. So it was now safe to summon her pet.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Normally, her pet - which she called Pitch as her own private joke, though its official name as written in the book </span>
  <span>was The Soot-Coated Horror - was just a small, inoffensive, vague creature that hung around her ankles if it was nearby at all. But if it were let free in the darkness…</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Birch smiled. She put her hands together, rubbed them, then cupped them and blew into the hollow. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Lights out.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Just like that, the power to the Foundation died.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She cut the lights. All of them. All the power, dead. The archives were plunged immediately into pitch darkness, and she had to make herself squeak and jump like the others did, pretend that it hadn’t been her that did it. Of course, she could still see fine, in grayscale, but there was no need for the others to know that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, god, no,” Abigail whimpered. “What’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>happening?!</span>
  </em>
  <span>”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Everyone stay calm,” Jonas said. “There must have been a power surge or something. Perhaps a storm popped up.” It was summer, and the Foundation’s electrical systems were old and failing at best, so it </span>
  <em>
    <span>was</span>
  </em>
  <span> a possibility, and Birch could’ve believed it - if she hadn’t known better.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She felt the Dark surge within her, pleased. The fear of those around her was pleasurable, spreading through her throat and lungs like a cool breath of fresh air. She reveled in it, drank it in for a moment before focusing on the monster.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Come get something to eat, my darling Horror,</span>
  </em>
  <span> she crooned, silently, to her ever-faithful companion, and heard its growl grow in the shadows of the Archive, heard the faint, almost musical tones as it manifested. </span>
  <em>
    <span>I’ve immersed it in just the kind of environ you like. It’s stranded down there, in the darkness, in the smell of rotten stagnant salt and cool, loving waters, waiting for you…</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>She Looked for it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She found something </span>
  <em>
    <span>else.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>There was something else in her archives. There was something Else </span>
  <em>
    <span>in her archives.</span>
  </em>
  <span> Something she hadn’t Seen until just now. She’d forgotten, somehow, that the mess of a monster that had just broken in had done so because it was fleeing something. Now she found what it was so afraid of.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There was a Hunter. A real Hunter, a proper Hunter, not whatever this horrible monstrosity was. She went rigid when she Saw that, when she Saw the woman, probably about six feet tall,  with spiky black hair with a glint of silver in her ears and nose and a honey-colored flash when her eyes caught the light, what little of it there was down here. That didn’t seem to bother her - she could see in the dark, most likely.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Alright,” she growled, stalking forwards. Her clothes were black and dark blue, melting into the shadows as she smoothly moved down the hallway and past Jonas’ office, into the archives. “You perverse motherfucker.”</span>
</p><p><span>Birch got the bizarre impression that the Hunter was talking to </span><em><span>her.</span></em> <em><span>Is she…?</span></em></p><p>
  <span>“Help me find this monster,” the Hunter hissed, “or leave me the hell alone.”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>She’s talking to me. How does she know I’m Watching?!</span>
  </em>
  <span> She knew the answer immediately: the Hunter </span>
  <em>
    <span>didn’t</span>
  </em>
  <span> know</span>
  <em>
    <span>.</span>
  </em>
  <span> She just </span>
  <em>
    <span>assumed </span>
  </em>
  <span>someone was. This Hunter knew about the Foundation, knew about the Eye.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>How strange.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>She seems almost familiar. Have I Seen her before? No, I don’t think so…</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>The Hunter thought she could handle the monstrous creature that had invaded Birch’s Archives. Hmm. Birch’s pet did like the occasional snack, and could devour an avatar with enough time, but a Hunter was the most surefire way to destroy one. She paused.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Maybe they could team up? But how? </span>
  <em>
    <span>Dearest,</span>
  </em>
  <span> she said, to her Horror, </span>
  <em>
    <span>do not attack the pure Hunter. The one who seems more human. The one who comes second. Do not attack her. Attack the other. But let the Hunter taste its blood. While the prey is in our territory now, it </span>
  </em>
  <span>is</span>
  <em>
    <span> her Hunt, and she should be allowed to finish it.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Her Horror growled in response, hating that its kill was being taken from it, but of course, as always, it would obey. It didn’t have a choice.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She’d keep the true Darkness out of the Hunter’s way. That impenetrable black, the brackish tide that lapped so sweetly at the corners of the lights and surged forth when those lights went out. She’d keep it out of the way. Keep a path between the Hunter and her prey clear. She could see through both of their eyes, as much as the prey still </span>
  <em>
    <span>had</span>
  </em>
  <span> eyes, so it wouldn’t be too difficult.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Birch settled in place. The archivist and the other assistants weren’t going to go anywhere until the lights came back on; they were too afraid, something she reveled in. Now it was time for her to sit back and Watch the show.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I'm on tumblr at dragonsateyourtoast; alpha's on tumblr at from-ashes-they-rise, find us there</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. A Fine Red Mist</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>The normal sweetness of the Hunt had turned sour and bitter in Riley’s mouth as she chased that monstrosity into the bowels of the regional branch of the Usher Foundation, vaulting over the debris left in its wake. A fallen Hunter, a </span>
  <em>
    <span>disgrace</span>
  </em>
  <span>. And there, within the ever-watching walls of the Beholding’s domain, no less. Absolutely disgusting.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She paced along the walls, watching it even in that darkness as it rampaged and ravaged its way deeper; ever deeper, into that darkness as though the dark here would be its ally. Riley knew better, she could smell that nasty smell the Dark left behind, of still, stagnant water that made Riley’s stomach churn. There was </span>
  <em>
    <span>something</span>
  </em>
  <span> of the Dark hunting with her, but when she tried to see it all she saw was a void moving opposite her, no distinct shape to be seen. It made her head hurt so she didn’t look for long.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The darkness that had overtaken the facility was just normal darkness, at least so far. She could still see in it, after all, with the eyes only a Hunter has. She knew that if someone pointed a flashlight at her then, her eyes would shine bright. They always did on a Hunt, no matter if she was enjoying it or not, and this Hunt was particularly unenjoyable. The itch between her shoulder blades, the </span>
  <em>
    <span>stench</span>
  </em>
  <span> of brackish and putrid water - it was distracting, and quite frankly ruining her vibe, disturbing her quiet.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The gentle tug at her limbs, a phantom sensation, reminded her of what needed to be done. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Yes, yes, I know,</span>
  </em>
  <span> she thought irritably as she moved forward after the beast. It </span>
  <em>
    <span>also</span>
  </em>
  <span> stank, and Riley was disgusted through and  with the whole situation. Stinking fetid salt water all around and wretched rotted flesh leaving a grease trail in the air in front of her nose. Nasty. Nasty, but it needed to die, to be put down like the rabid dog it was, and Riley was more than happy to oblige. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Hunt, hunt and kill it</span>
  </em>
  <span>, that was the whisper igniting her blood, rushing through her veins like electricity. She saw it throw another shelf in her way and she couldn’t help the guttural, roiling snarl of frustration that rumbled out of her chest as she vaulted the shelf and threw herself forward. She was tired of this game, playing cat and mouse with something that no longer gave a damn about running.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That was when a particular smell hit her, the smell of blood and battle, adrenaline and fear. She knew that smell so very well. That was the smell of the Hunt, and she knew where it came from. Riley had always wondered where that dagger found itself, lost in a particularly bloody and difficult confrontation. But now, as her eyes gazed at the door labeled “Artifact Storage,” she knew. She knew and it pissed her off. </span>
  <em>
    <span>The fucking Beholding has my knife. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>She was of a mind to just break it open. That door looked flimsy enough if she </span>
  <em>
    <span>really</span>
  </em>
  <span> wanted inside. She ignored the prickling sensation that she got for getting too close to that creature of the Dark and, for a moment, started examining the door. She almost decided to open it, take her knife, and go confront the fallen Hunter when she felt it. The phantom force returned to her limbs, and she heard gentle tutting in her ears, and she moved like a marionette back onto course. “Fuck’s sake,” she spat, racing forwards again. “I’ll be back for my goddamn knife, you bastard!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She hoped that the Beholding or the Archivist or whoever was watching in this place - because in a place like this, there was always something watching - </span>
  <em>
    <span>heard her.</span>
  </em>
  <span> Otherwise she’d be upset that no one could react. Well, not like it would matter, she’d get it back one way or another, but that wasn’t her task now. Now it was the beast she’d started to corner, deep in the heart of the facility. There were cobwebs here, numerous and dusty, and Riley couldn’t help but laugh as she went with speed down the hallways. She knew she had the beast now. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She’d known him, briefly. Hunters usually didn’t get along when they were cat and dog, quiet and ridiculously loud. Underneath the fervor for violence and the ecstasy of the carnage he’d caused, she recognized that face. Poor, stupid Emilio. He always did get in over his head, but he was a capable fighter even without the addition of whatever had come over him. He was bull-headed and more like a bear now than the dog he’d acted like before. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Oh well</span>
  </em>
  <span>, she thought. </span>
  <em>
    <span>You finally got so deep in that you won’t come out of it.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>He’d stopped at the end of a hallway, trapped between shattering another wall with only soil beyond or trying his luck with the Hunter on his heels. He decided to try his luck, turning and letting out an ear-shattering roar that died in his throat as a howl. Riley crouched at the end of the hallway, grinding her teeth when she felt the Dark Thing sidle up beside her, the prickling of its void presence almost becoming painful. She watched him for just a moment, her free hand hovering over her gun before he threw himself at her with a scream.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Thing surged from her side and met him in the middle, melting from the shadows and in a slick shadowy cloud of ink and grasping for him, bringing him to the ground with a shattering impact and a squeal of pain. It was just a squabble though, an exchange of blows that wouldn’t come to much on its own. Riley let out a slow, long breath and fell into stance, her long knife ready. The moment would be quick, passing in the blink of an eye, and she knew it had to be then or it would be never. He’d never let his guard down a second time.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>There it was.</span>
  </em>
  <span> He lifted his arms to bring them down on the creature, and left himself entirely exposed. With a roar that she couldn’t keep down, she moved forward and the knife hit home between his ribs. He screamed, an awful sound like a dying animal. Maybe that’s because that’s what it was. But he wasn’t down yet, it would take more than that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Riley realized that as his fist connected in wild, flailing rage with her face, sending her spinning back into the wall and leaving her knife firmly in his ribcage. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Fuck’s sake.</span>
  </em>
  <span> The keening noise he was making grated on her ears, maybe she had a concussion, and through her own cracked ribs she knew this was going to get messy if he managed to attract someone down into the depths. God, it hurt when she moved, but that flaring pain - that meant that she was </span>
  <em>
    <span>alive</span>
  </em>
  <span>. The electricity crackled to life in her veins once more and she was spurred into action.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She really didn’t want to use the gun, but she had to get her knife back. So, she drew it with deft hands and aimed. That wasn’t going to be the killing blow, no, that was for her knife and her hands, but the gun was useful in incapacitating, so when she fired a few shots into Emilio Hudson’s legs, she felt a dark satisfaction watching him fall in agony to the ground. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She holstered the gun and dove for the knife as void of the Dark Thing flowed like inky water to trap Emilio. He screamed and flailed, drawing brutal claws across one of Riley’s legs, but she had her knife and pushed herself backwards, stumbling. “Sorry, Emilio,” she muttered slowly, gripping the knife tight. “You never were cut out for this, no matter how much you wanted to be.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The creature of the Dark had him pinned, tearing away at him, which gave Riley plenty of time to shuffle into position. She stood there, heavily favoring one leg, with the knife in her hands above his head. With a brief moment of melancholy, Riley fell into a kneeling position and used that weight and momentum to drive the knife home.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>the chapters will get longer. don't you worry.</p><p>falcon is on tumblr as dragonsateyourtoast; alpha's on tumblr as from-ashes-they-rise</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Fade to Silence</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>And that was that. Birch felt the life leave the malformed corpse of the Hunter that had chosen to burst into her Archives. But now, she needed to get over there, and get the remaining Hunter out of here, before her coworkers wised up and realized nothing was happening.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>They’re too scared to do anything. If I leave, they probably won’t follow.</span>
  </em>
  <span> Birch peered around the edge of the desk, towards the door. “I d - I don’t hear anything,” she said softly, and carefully slid out, as if she were actually afraid of what was going on out there.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Birch, no,” London hissed, eyes wide in the darkness. He’d picked up his phone, and the screen was lighting his face from beneath.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Abby shook her head. “We don’t know what’s going on,” she whispered. “We can’t go out there!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Birch scooted across the floor and stood up on her knees, then her feet, crouching so she could peer out the window - as if she were actually looking. “I don’t see anything,” she told the others, glancing back. “I’m gonna - I’m gonna go look and see if it’s safe.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Absolutely not,” Jonas said instantly, poking his head over the desk. “Absolutely not! We will </span>
  <em>
    <span>wait</span>
  </em>
  <span> until we have word from literally anybody else who works here. You know what - you know what, I’m going to call - I’m going to call Soren, and see what he says is going on, because I’ll be he knows -”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Birch put one hand on the door handle. Hmm… if she was careful about it…</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jonas fumbled for his phone. London glanced over, turning the flashlight on his on to help his boss. Birch looked at them, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>As she let it out, the flashlight on London’s phone went out, and with a muted crackling sound, so did the displays on both of the phones. Birch took the opportunity to open the door and poke her head out, then slide out.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Birch, no!” she heard one of them call, in a stage-whisper, wanting to shout after her but trying to keep themselves quiet. She went anyway, pulling the door shut behind her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There was a faint light shining in from the far end of the hallway. Birch paused a moment, took another breath, and that light died out, too.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Now they </span>
  <em>
    <span>definitely</span>
  </em>
  <span> wouldn’t follow her. She could feel their fear, leaking out from under the door like a puddle; they were trapped, in the total darkness, and they could do nothing about it. That gave Birch free reign to do whatever she wanted, at least for a little bit. She looked up and saw the pure Dark spreading across the ceiling like a puddle, staining the wood black for now, and smiled. No cell signals would be getting through that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She’d let them suffer for a little bit. That would be enough time for her to get that other Hunter out of here.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Birch made her way briskly down the hall. She could see just fine in the Darkness that spread through the Archive now, and let the thicker tendrils of color wind through her fingertips as she walked. It was nice, really, the cool sensation against her skin. It wasn’t damp, like water, but it was cooler and smoother than any fabric or material.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Down, amongst the shelves of records, she could sense her Horror. It was currently crouched on the lower half of the dead monster. The Hunter, wounded, was leaning against a shelf. Birch let the Dark close in around them, but not cover them, leaving the Hunter a little pool of clear area. A few moments more, and she stepped through the Darkness, into that little circle.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She looked the Hunter up and down. Mostly up, because she was a good foot taller than Birch herself, which she hadn’t realized when she was just looking through the Hunter’s eyes. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Hmm. That is a miscalculation.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hi,” she said, conversationally, and strolled over to the undulating heap of void that concealed her Horror. She reached in up to her shoulder and held out her hand; her Horror pressed its face against her palm, rumbling. With her free hand, she indicated the corpse on the ground. “Is this thing yours?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Hunter’s hair was dark, short, and spiky, and her face glinted with tiny studs of metal. Birch Looked at her for a second, and spotted for a fraction of a moment thin, pale lines connected to her bones, stretching upwards to some unseen force. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Hmm. The Mother of Puppets has a hand in this, too.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’d really rather it wasn’t mine. So, you’re the Eye’s pet, huh?” The Hunter’s voice was only slightly tinged with spite. “Dark too, nice combo, I’m sure.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Birch beamed at her. “Pet’s an interesting way of putting it. I prefer… conduit? Channel? We all know ‘avatar’ is overused.” She smiled, glancing to her Horror. “Go ahead. All yours, my dearest.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Darkness beside her oozed forwards, and the monster’s body was dragged backwards, into the mass. Already Birch could hear the snap and crunch of bones splintering in her Horror’s teeth, the wet scrape of its abrasive tongue on the already-torn flesh of its new meal. “That’ll take a few minutes,” she mused, pulling her arm out of the Darkness and watching her pet eat. “We can leave it be. There won’t be any trace left when it’s done.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Hunter - </span>
  <em>
    <span>Riley </span>
  </em>
  <span>- narrowed her eyes, each a golden-brown with a shimmering sheen behind the color, and wrinkled her nose at the Horror (or at least, at where it was). “Wonderful,” she said, flatly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We should probably get you out of here before someone turns on a light I’m not paying attention to,” Birch said, turning away from her Horror and to the Hunter. “Riley, is it? You definitely aren’t supposed to be in here, and you’ll want to get those wounds treated.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes, </span>
  <em>
    <span>mother,</span>
  </em>
  <span>” Riley snapped, rolling her eyes. Then she for a moment, as if caught in a decision, unsure of what to do. Her hands twitched, as did her torso, almost involuntarily turning.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Birch narrowed her eyes and Looked again. Sure enough, there was tension on the pale, ethereal strands that ran from the Hunter’s bones upwards into the dark. “Calm yourself,” she said with a raised eyebrow, not to the Hunter but to whoever was puppetting her. “I mean her no harm. We’ll be going.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They had to get out before Birch’s coworkers grew some courage and headed into the darkness. Birch turned, and the Dark parted before her like a curtain, rippling outwards to show the long carpet-floor corridor of the Archives, to where it turned a corner and headed towards the entrance. “I guess your… well, I don’t want to say</span>
  <em>
    <span> puppetmaster</span>
  </em>
  <span>, but I don’t really know what other word to use,” Birch said. “I guess they’ll handle your wounds?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Big words for the pet of some voyeuristic freakshow and the literal incarnation of mainstream fear. Not even creative, the Dark.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Birch opened her mouth to reply, but another odd twitch of the Hunter’s head stopped her. “"And it's incredibly gauche to fail to introduce yourself, especially when you Know the Hunter's name,” Riley said, though her voice sounded odd, strained, as if each word was pieced together, almost involuntarily.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“...you know,” Birch said, “I’m familiar with compulsion and all, but that’s fucking creepy.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thank you. Now, are you going to be polite and introduce yourself?”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Who is it…? The weaver? The name - the name is Laelia.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Not a name Birch had heard before. She stored it away for later. “Oh, sorry about that! I forget sometimes that you won’t just know. My name is Birch Halloway. I’m an archival assistant for the Usher Foundation.” She gave a slight bow, a respectful nod. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>She - she’s old, older than me, from - from long ago -</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s better. Now, I’m afraid that the darling Hunter needs to leave at once. I shall not risk her health meandering in this dreadful place.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Birch held one hand out, towards the cleared path. “By all means,” she said. “Please, vacate my Archives. I </span>
  <em>
    <span>certainly</span>
  </em>
  <span> don’t want my coworkers seeing you and wondering what the hell went on down here.” There was a faraway look in Riley’s eyes; definitely the effects of Laelia speaking. Birch stepped back, to let the Hunter pass, and felt the cool, comforting embrace of the Dark lap up against her ankles. This was her place; the Hunter did not belong here.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Wonderful!</span>
  </em>
  <span> And your… Dedicated hospitality has been duly noted, little Beholding’s pet.” With that, Riley brushed past Birch, heading along the non-swamped pathway towards the door. Her movements were clearly pained, slightly stilted, but Birch could see where the thin threads tugged and pulled her along, aiding her movement. Birch followed her, pushing the Dark back as she went, away from the Archives’ center and back to the walls and corners where it normally lurked.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Hunter made her way back through the halls, being blessedly silent as she passed Jonas’ office. Birch kept the window blacked out for now, ensuring none of them would see her passing, and walked Riley all the way to the Foundation branch’s door. The halls were darker than usual; none of the staff seemed to be about. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Perfect.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thank you for your assistance today,” Birch said formally, as Riley clambered over the rubble of the wall and stepped into the daylight. “Your skills most certainly came in handy. I’ll let you know if I see anything like that pop up again.” Like a pickpocket, she plucked Riley’s mobile phone number from her mind, smoothly, not daring to disrupt any of the Hunter’s actual thoughts.</span>
</p><p>
  <span> “I’ll be back for my goddamn knife, even if I have to shatter my way through that fucking door.” The Hunter’s face was slightly flushed, her eyes narrowed.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Knife?</span>
  </em>
  <span> “I’m… sure I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I’m </span>
  <em>
    <span>also</span>
  </em>
  <span> sure we can discuss it later,” Birch said, trying to figure out what the hell </span>
  <em>
    <span>that</span>
  </em>
  <span> meant. Had the Hunter left her knife behind in the corpse? “If you lost something in the Dark, I’ll have Pitch bring it to me later and get it back to you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Riley stared at her for a moment, flint-chip eyes boring into Birch’s for a moment before she turned and limped away, headed for the treeline.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Birch let out a long breath. “O-kay,” she muttered, turning back to the interior of the Foundation building. “Now to clean up the </span>
  <em>
    <span>rest</span>
  </em>
  <span> of this mess.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She’d have to figure out some explanation for all this. For the </span>
  <em>
    <span>giant hole in the wall</span>
  </em>
  <span> and the blown breakers. Maybe an earthquake? They didn’t really get earthquakes in Albany. Oh, this was going to be a nightmare. Maybe she could just… play dumb, and be as confused as the rest of them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That would probably be easier. She made her way back down to the Archive, and after a few moments of composing herself, knocked on the door of Jonas’ office. It gave her a slight twist of pleasure to hear someone inside squeak in fear.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Shh! It’s only me,” Birch hissed, opening the door. She scooted in and shut it as quietly as she could. “I didn’t see anything out there.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You damn near gave me a heart attack,” Jonas growled, from where he was now pressed up against a filing cabinet. “Why did you </span>
  <em>
    <span>do</span>
  </em>
  <span> that?!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do - do what, open the door?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, run off into the dark! We have no idea what’s out there.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s… nothing,” Birch said. “As - as far as I can tell?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jonas rubbed his forehead with one hand. “Get down. We’re staying in here until Soren gives me the all clear. Do you have your phone? Mine’s not working.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Birch moved to the desk and sat down on the ground. She pulled out her phone. “Um… no. Mine - um. Mine went out. I’ll try to turn it back on?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Obviously, it did not work; she wasn’t actually trying to turn it on. “No,” Birch told Jonas, shaking her head - though, of course, he couldn’t see it in the dark. “No good.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Then we wait,” Jonas said. “Until someone comes and gets us.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It took half an hour, but after that time, the Foundation’s emergency lights finally came back on, and it was only a few minutes after that when Birch heard footsteps in the hall and a knock on the door. It was Soren, obviously (obvious to her; not to the others), but all her coworkers flinched at the sound anyway.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Abigail risked a glance over the desk, and melted in relief. “It’s Soren,” she reported, and stood up, shaky. The fear emanating from her began to abate, and Birch almost felt disappointed. “I think that means it’s all clear now?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hello?” Soren called, and opened the door. “Are - anyone in here?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We are,” Jonas groaned, standing up. His voice was oddly hoarse. “All the Archive staff. Is - what happened?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t know,” Soren said, voice tinged with stress, syllables clipped. “We’re… investigating it now.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are we safe?” London called.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We think so. But let’s get you all out of here anyway.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Birch followed the others as they filed out of the office and turned towards the lighter end of the hall, towards the lobby. She spared only a cursory glance for the deep scratches on the wall where the monster’s claws had gouged it; Soren gave them a worried look as well, but said nothing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She’d let </span>
  <em>
    <span>him</span>
  </em>
  <span> handle the cleanup on this one. She’d already done the actual hard work of it. Maybe they’d rule it as a ghost, or… something ridiculous. Whatever; it wasn’t her problem anymore. She left with the rest of the Archive staff and did her best to act as frightened and confused as the rest of them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Whatever Soren decided, he didn’t tell them about it. Birch only knew that the wall would be repaired in the coming weeks, and that for her, not much changed, other than her coworkers seeming a bit more nervous in the days following the attack. Abigail and London muttered a few theories to each other, but seemed too subdued to actually pursue them. The artifact storage staff, who hadn’t been in today, didn’t even bother looking at the scratches; they’d seen stranger things. An investigation team was formed from the main Foundation staff. They asked a few questions of each of the Archive staff. Nobody asked Birch about what she’d seen or not seen when she’d left Jonas’ office in the dark. Nobody asked about the fact that the security footage was completely distorted and corrupted, meaning there was absolutely no footage of the attack, the mysterious event.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nobody asked about the patch of old, dried, black blood on the carpet in the back of the Archives.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Find us on tumblr at dragonsateyourtoast and from-ashes-they-rise!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Threat Assessment</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Riley had her legs propped up on her desk, pen in her mouth, when her phone went off. Her leg was as healed as it was going to get, only scars remaining, and the concussion and cracked ribs had healed even faster. So she sat up properly and looked at the caller ID. “Unknown?” she muttered, placing the pen on her desk, over the papers she’d been examining. “Wonderful. If this is a scam I swear to god...”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She answered, well prepared to tell whoever it was to fuck right off. “Hello?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hello, Riley.” That calm, insufferable voice was all too familiar. That goddamn pet of the Dark and Beholding.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You have got to be fucking kidding me.” Riley felt indignation swelling in her chest. “Who said I wanted a phone call from you? Who said you could call me? </span>
  <em>
    <span>Who said you could have my phone number?</span>
  </em>
  <span>”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t need permission to make a phone call,” the voice, Riley vaguely remembered her name being Birch, said in a short and clipped manner. “Calm down. I have something you should hear.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Riley knew her voice had gotten too loud when she heard the stairs creak. Laelia had gotten either concerned or curious. Whoops. “Why exactly would, or even should, I need to hear anything you have?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Laelia poked her head in, black hair tied in a loose bun. She looked confused, mouthing a question, </span>
  <em>
    <span>What’s wrong?</span>
  </em>
  <span> Riley just shook her head and raised a finger to her lips.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Someone came in to the Foundation to give a statement about a creature that I find unnervingly similar to the one you helped kill in my Archive,” she said. Riley couldn’t say she was happy to hear that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No thanks,” she said, glancing at the untouched math homework on her desk. “I’m busy. Besides, why would that be my problem? Emilio’s dead, I don’t have any reason at current to go after some other hellbeast.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You should care because it’s another Hunter that’s gone wrong, and two is enough of a pattern to warrant further investigation. Come to the Foundation. I am absolutely sure that you need to hear this.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Riley took a deep breath and sighed. “Okay, listen. I have homework to do. I have a grade I can’t fuck up.” Laelia just stared at her the entire time she made this excuse in utter bewilderment, her eyes wide.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ll come to you, then.” A soft, terrible, crackling static sound came from the other end of the call, and it felt like it was scraping the inside of Riley’s ear. With a quiet curse, she tugged the phone away until it stopped. “Give me half an hour and I’ll be there.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh you motherfucker,” Riley swore. “What is it with you and just pulling that weirdass bullshit!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Delightful,” she said, talking over Riley as if she hadn’t spoken. God, Riley could feel a vein in her skull trying to burst. “Do tell your esteemed housemate I am looking forward to finally making her acquaintance, would you? Thank you for your time.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Riley stared at the phone as the line went dead. “Son of a fucking bitch,” she said quietly, but with a lot of feeling.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Laelia raised a delicate black eyebrow. “Shall I go make tea, then?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah. Apparently we’re going to have a </span>
  <em>
    <span>guest</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Half an hour went by and when the doorbell rang, Riley had her feet up on the coffee table of the parlour with a mug of black coffee next to her and a bag of smoky BBQ crickets in her hands. She figured that if there was one way to freak this person out enough to get her to leave, it would be by eating dried crickets. Laelia was sitting beside her, sipping her tea. “Are you going to get the door?” she asked quietly. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>With a begrudging sigh, Riley got up and went to the door, bag of cricket snacks still in her hand. She opened it mid-doorbell ring. “Hi.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The woman standing in front of her was shorter than she remembered. Or maybe she just seemed taller when she was in her element, her domain. She had lighter brown skin with freckles across her nose, which was made more apparent by her short and wavy bob of ashen blonde hair. There were pitch black wraparound sunglasses obscuring her eyes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hello,” Birch said pleasantly, tipping her head back to (presumably) look into Riley’s eyes. “May I come in?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Riley popped another cricket into her mouth and nodded. “Uh huh, c’mon in.” She took a fairly large step back and motioned with a rather dramatic flourish for her to enter. “To the parlour, if you please.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Birch winced at the crunch. “Thanks,” she said, and stepped past. Over one shoulder she carried a large beige and red purse, zipped at the top. She did pause by the door to remove her boots first before progressing further into the house. “Hello,” she said, to Laelia, as she entered the parlour. “Pleased to meet you in person, Lady Corbeld. I’m Birch, though I’m sure you already know that.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Riley closed the door behind Birch and watched as Laelia looked up, her black eyes focusing with disturbing intensity on her. Laelia was petite, under five feet tall, but that didn’t stop her from being unnerving as all get-out, Riley knew that through personal experience. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“A pleasure to meet you as well, Ms. Halloway,” she said, her voice carrying with it a gentle RP accent. Riley tried her best to slip back into the room unnoticed. She knew damn well when she needed to stay out of something.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Birch seated herself on a chair facing the other two and slung the purse off her shoulder. She paused for a second, her gaze lingering on the antique rifle that hung over the mantle. “Impressive,” she mused, staring at it. “That gun’s killed 107 people, and only 98 of them were in the war.” She paused. “...oh, right. I said I had something you needed to hear, and I do,” she said, and unzipped the purse, pulling out an archaic tape recorder and setting it on the table.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Riley had, by that time, sat down in her own chair and stared dubiously at the tape recorder before she took a large swig of her coffee. Laelia just smiled, all politeness and old English charm. “I’m assuming it’s quite important, whatever happens to be on that tape, otherwise you’d have waited for us to come to you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Unfortunately, it is,” Birch said, her tone sounding almost apologetic. Riley wasn’t sure if that was a comfort or not. “I contacted you as soon as I took Mr. McMillan’s statement, because if this is the second occurrence of its type, there’s a strong chance there will be a third, and I thought you should know.” She leaned forward and pressed a button on the recorder.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>For a moment, there was just a soft fuzz of static. Then came Birch’s voice, clear, concise, and proper. “Statement of Bryant McMillan, regarding an encounter he had during a photoshoot on April 6th, 2017 at the now-abandoned Albany Cold Storage Central Warehouse, in Albany, New York. Statement taken direct from subject, April 9th, 2017, by Birch Halloway, archival assistant at the Usher Foundation, Albany, New York. Statement begins.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The next voice was a man’s, sounding a little nervous. “...so I just go, now? I just start talking?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes.” A very, very faint hiss of static, rising and falling like a wave on the shore.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Alright.” The man took a deep breath, in and out. When he spoke again, his voice was steadier, and as he went on, it grew more and more melodic, lilting, the wording more beautiful. “So, um, so I’m a freelance - well, I’m actually a… a sales associate. I guess, is the title for the job. My actual job, that is. You know how we all have normal jobs just to get by. But I do freelance photo work on the side - you know, following my true passion of art, and all that. I can’t always be exacting about the jobs I pick up. If I want to spread my name around, I have to be willing to pick up a few jobs that are less than ideal for my personal goals. But that’s not the point. That’s all just background to explain what I was doing at the old cold storage warehouse in downtown.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“A friend of mine, Sofia West, had called me up a few days earlier to tell me about a photoshoot opportunity she wanted my help with. She’s a model, but also an urban explorer, so I was immediately a little bit leery about it - you know how urbexers are. They take risks, go dangerous places. I’m not really into tangling with the police, so I tend to stay on the safe side and keep to parks and venues that allow my particular brand of artistry.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But Sofia’s a good friend, and she promised me it would be safe. She said there’d been plenty of people in and out of the building all the time, and that the police had better things to do than keep an eye on the old cold storage building. It wasn’t particularly harmful, and the most dangerous thing there were some homeless. She even said she’d provide me a mask to wear, so I wouldn’t have to go buy one.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well… I said yes. Obviously I said yes, or I wouldn’t have seen what I did, and I wouldn’t be here. Sofia told me that was great, and set the date for April 6th, midmorning. She said she’d have a few others with her, a few urbexers who were going to help us get in and out - Jordan and Vivi, so -"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Full names, please," came Birch's voice, interrupting.<br/></span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Wh - Oh. Right. Sorry. </span>
  <span>Jordan Marshall, and Vivian Fenetry. Four of us total. Well, five if you count the lookout. Sofia told me she’d have a lookout on the exterior of the building, to keep watch for approaching police, in case somebody saw us and called the cops. That was Andre Huffman.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So that was all five of us. April 6th came around, and Sofia came to my house to get me, with the others already in her van. Andre was driving, probably because he was going to take the van away from the building once we were out, to reduce suspicion. Again, I wasn’t really cool with the whole breaking-and-entering deal, but Sofia was persuasive. God, if she heard me say that, she’d be pissed - she has a big rule about no actual breaking, just entering. Says it’s vandalism, or something.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Anyway, Andre drove us to the warehouse, and we got out and headed around, through the fence and up to the building. A lot of the lower outer windows were broken, but one of the doors was unlocked, and that’s how we got in. Sofia went first, leading the way, and we all followed, me with my camera bag and equipment. Vivian was helping me carry everything - obviously I couldn’t have all my reflectors and everything, because that’s my studio setup, but I had some small-scale portable screens that I needed help with. I also had an older Polaroid camera with me. Sofia said she wanted vintage photos of the site, and while I didn’t think an old Polaroid would be better than what I could do with digital editing programs and a few good filters, she was paying me to use it, so… that’s what I was going to do.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It went fine at first. We got in pretty easily, went through a few areas to get to the lesser-traveled spots in the building. Sofia and Jordan had huge flashlights, almost the industrial kind, so we could look in some of the darker places. Those weren’t so good for photos, though, so we mostly stayed out of them. I almost wished we hadn’t. If we’d just taken more time poking around in some of the darker rooms, maybe trying to get shots of the walls or the graffiti, maybe Vivian would still be alive.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It was on the sixth floor when we first heard it. I didn’t know what it was at first, I thought maybe it was just some kind of weird wind. It was a hissing sound, like a leaky pipe, and it wasn’t until Sofia stopped us all and started looking around for it that I realized it wasn’t rising and falling like the wind did, but it also wasn’t staying steady. It was regular, like breathing. Slow, steady, with this sharp undertone to it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I didn’t know what it was. None of us did, and we spread out a little, searching for it. Sofia was worried it might be some kind of gas leak, or problem with the pipes that could hurt us, but Jordan pulled out a little device that told them the air was normal, so we let it go. We kept going, further into the building, looking for a few good shots.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“At that point, I started taking shots with the Polaroid camera. Up until now I’d just been using my digital Canon, but Sofia wanted a few older-style photos, so I pulled out the old camera, popped in a roll of film, and started to take a few shots.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“They were nice enough. Polaroids are pretty easy to work with, and you get the added fun of waving the photo around while it develops. The first few were totally fine. We kept moving, kept trying for different shots. Midmorning was a pretty decent time, and luckily because it was overcast the lighting was much more diffuse, meaning that I could pump the color saturation post-production and end up with some really nice, well-lit shots. Not on the Polaroids, obviously, but there’s a reason I’d brought my normal gear with me.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We kept going. We got used to the hissing sound pretty quick, which made it all the more unnerving when it did fade out and back in. I started getting a weird feeling, like we were being watched or something. Like there was a presence, somewhere, just behind one of the old support poles, or just around a hallway corner, just inside one of the rooms. It was freaky, but no cause for real alarm, so I just kept going with Sofia and the others.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Everything changed when we found a big open area on the eighth floor to shoot in. Sofia had me set up the reflectors for a few group shots with her and Jordan and Vivian, and so I had my back to an empty hallway, focusing my camera on the three of them. I really didn’t like it. Something about that felt unsafe to me, in a way that I couldn’t really describe. It wasn’t something I’d felt earlier in the building, so it wasn’t just me being nervous about where we were. I want to say that I knew something was wrong. That I knew something bad was going to happen. But I didn’t take myself seriously.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’d just pulled out the Polaroid for a few vintage shots of the three of them posing when I saw them get very still. Sofia cleared her throat and said something to me, but I couldn’t hear it through the mask. I don’t know if you’ve ever worn a protective mask before, but they’re very hard to hear through. Your voice is muffled by the plastic and rubber. So I had no idea what she said.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I could see where she was looking, though, and I turned around. The hallway behind me was empty save for the wind, but for a second, I swore I saw… I don’t know. Some kind of shadow, maybe. It moved faster than I could see, just a flash of darkness vanishing into a door.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“‘What was that?’ I asked, to Sofia, and she told me she didn’t know. We grouped up and I grabbed my camera stuff. Jordan took a few steps towards the hallway and called out, asking who was there, but nobody was, and when they and Vivian went down the hall, they didn’t find anything in the rooms.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t know where the thing went. I think it went out the window, and then back in through a different one, because a lot of the windows were broken. I guess it just scaled the walls of the building. I don’t know. I don’t know. I just know that it was behind us when they got back to the room.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It was fast. We grabbed our stuff and ran, back down the hallway, and headed for the stairwell. That hissing started up again, louder this time, with this sort of rattle under it, like an old car radiator.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know it could’ve caught us. I </span>
  <em>
    <span>know</span>
  </em>
  <span> that it could’ve caught us. But - it didn’t. It just followed us, so close sometimes I could see it out of the corner of my eye when I was running. Sofia was shouting at us, telling us to get out. I heard her call Andre, tell him to get the van and bring it. I was still holding the Polaroid, and I’d left my reflectors up on the eighth floor. We cleared the stairwell to a point where we couldn’t go down it, on the fourth floor, and had to head to a different one to continue downwards.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I guess that’s when it decided it had enough. It decided it didn’t want to chase us anymore. Vivian was the last one out of the stairwell, and last in line while we were running. She was tallest, but she was staying back, making sure we all got out. That’s why it took her. It got her first. I mean, it didn’t get anyone else, but… well, it might have, actually. I’m not sure. I’ll get to that in a minute.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It just reached forward and grabbed her leg while she was running. That tripped her up and she fell forwards with a terrified shriek, and when she did I turned around in time to see it raise this big arm and stab it right through her torso. There was no resistance, as if she weren’t even there. Someone was screaming. It might have been me.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It raised its head. It was massive, some sort of monster. It was almost humanoid in its form, but the limbs were all distorted, twisted the wrong way, malformed. It had more eyes than it should’ve, and its teeth… it had so, so many teeth. Those claws punched through the cement like it was butter. I watched it lower its head long enough to tear part of Vivian’s torso apart, sending a spray of blood across the old dusty floor.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I ran. I’m not ashamed of that. By that point, there was nothing I could’ve done for Vivian. I saw her spine exposed. There was no way we could have saved her. Sofia was right to call Andre, to have us get out. That monster took its time following us, too. I think it was… I think it was savoring the kill it had made. When I next saw it, it was in the doorway as we fled to the van. It was just… watching us. I threw my camera into my bag, and we got in as quickly as we could and had Andre take us to the highway. We drove across the city just to get away from that thing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We called the police, obviously. They found Vivian’s body. We weren’t arrested or anything, for trespassing. I think they felt like we’d already suffered enough with our friend dead. I at least told them what had happened, but they didn’t believe me. That was obvious. When I gave them my story, they just looked at each other like I was insane. I swear, I’m not lying - I know what I saw. I wasn’t drunk, or high, or anything. I know what I saw.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It was only after the police session, once I’d returned home, that I found the photograph. When I’d turned to see Vivian get pulled down, I must’ve hit the shutter button with my finger, and it had taken a photo that had been stuck in the camera while we’d been running. When I threw my gear into the van, it had come loose, at the bottom of my bag, and stuck there.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ve brought the photograph with me. Here, you can have it. I don’t want to see it anymore. I don’t want to remember that thing. It’s already in my nightmares, and looking at that just makes me remember hearing her scream.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s only been a few days. I’m still shaken from the experience, and I don’t think I’ll ever really forget it. I want to, but I don’t think I can. None of us have talked about it. None of us know how to. We haven’t contacted each other at all. I tried to call Sofia to see if she wanted her mask back, but she never answered me, so I threw it out. She was friends with Vivian. She must be dealing with that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I keep hearing that hissing breath, that rattle. Like it’s still around. I know it’s just in my memory, in my mind, but sometimes I get that feeling like something’s just around the corner, watching me and waiting for me to turn my back. I haven’t slept much since the incident. I wonder if the others feel that way. I texted Jordan about it. They didn’t answer me either. I don’t know where they are. I don’t know why that scares me so much.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Take the photo. Take my statement. I wish you could take the memory of that whole day from me too. I can’t get the smell of Vivian’s blood out of my mind, the way that thing raised its head after bringing her down and breathed it in. I can’t shake the idea that it wasn’t just smelling for her, that it was trying to smell us, too. I don’t like the idea that it might have caught my scent.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“...that’s all. What do you think?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There was a light pause. “This sounds like a very traumatic experience,” came Birch’s voice, carefully. “I suggest you seek professional counseling, at the very least.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You… don’t believe me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“On the contrary, Mr. McMillan, I think your story is very much worth investigating. We will have to take this and seek out some of the details ourselves, perhaps the police report, since you did say you made one.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What about the photograph?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“This interests me. It is… unsettling, to say the least, if in fact it is a real photograph at all -”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Of </span>
  <em>
    <span>course</span>
  </em>
  <span> it’s real!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A sigh. “We’ll have to investigate further. You’ve left your contact details with the front desk, and we will definitely get in touch with you if we find anything.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“...fine.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Statement ends.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The tape ran to a stop and clicked a few times before Birch leaned forward and stopped it. “Before you ask, yes, I have the photograph,” she said, reaching back into her purse. She pulled out a small square of glossy paper - an old-fashioned Polaroid picture, the kind from a camera that was almost disposable. She held it out to Riley, who took it in one hand, warily. The picture was surprisingly clear, and dread gnawed at Riley’s stomach when she finally realized what she was looking at. “Here it is. You see now why I chose to bring this to your attention?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Riley took a nice, deep breath to try to keep her hand from shattering her coffee mug. If Laelia noticed, she kept quiet. “Yeah. Yeah I see it now. Couldn’t have happened to a </span>
  <em>
    <span>nicer</span>
  </em>
  <span> fuckin person.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re familiar with what this thing used to be, then?” Birch said, raising one eyebrow over her dark glasses.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah. You could say that. If I never saw Andrew Whittaker’s face again it would have been too soon. Son of a </span>
  <em>
    <span>bitch</span>
  </em>
  <span>, I knew he was an asshole but not a Hunter asshole. Not at the time, anyway.” Riley, with a still trembling hand, set down the mug and rubbed her face. Laelia laid a hand over her arm, and she let out a sigh. “Fuck.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“More than just familiar. You... know him?” Birch asked, curiosity tainting her voice. Riley hated that, but at least she wasn’t pulling it out of her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Unfortunately, yes. I hadn’t heard about him since I left the City until someone from Queens told me he went AWOL from the force. Makes sense now, I guess.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Birch tapped one finger against her lips. “Well,” she said, “if you’d like to hunt him down in return for whatever misdeeds he did you, I could use the help finding him. Avatars who recklessly slaughter members of the general public, as I’m sure he’s doing, are not avatars I enjoy having run around, and with him being… like that, I think I’m going to have to kill him.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t think I have a choice, not if he’s running around Albany. If he was </span>
  <em>
    <span>anywhere</span>
  </em>
  <span> else, I’d let someone else deal with him, but no, he’s in </span>
  <em>
    <span>my</span>
  </em>
  <span> hunting grounds. Because of course that shitfaced bastard couldn’t just leave me alone.” She flexed her fingers, and Laelia flinched when the knuckles popped and crackled. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Birch nodded slowly. “I was very much hoping you’d say that,” she said, sounding relieved. “I’m not much for tracking myself. Mr. McMillan left his address with us, and I think that if we go there, we’ll be able to find… well, not him, not </span>
  <em>
    <span>anymore</span>
  </em>
  <span>. But we’ll be able to pick up a trail.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Riley rolled her shoulders. “Yeah, if he’s been there the past 48 hours I’ll catch his trail without a problem.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t know for sure, but he’s probably been there in the last </span>
  <em>
    <span>two</span>
  </em>
  <span> hours.” Birch made a face of discomfort, maybe even minor physical pain, wrinkling her nose up and raising one hand to press her fingertips against her forehead for a second. “Can either of you drive?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Riley nodded. “Yeah, I can. Car’s right outside.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How much time do you need to prepare for a hunt?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Mm, not very long,” she said, and now there was a dangerous glint in her eyes. Hungry. “I’ll be back down in just a minute.” She stood quickly and almost loped up the stairs with a feline elegance, changing into a more suitable outfit for a hunt than jeans and a sweater. Then she grabbed her long knife and her pistol, hiding them accordingly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She hated the thought of seeing his fucking face again. She really, really did. She thought he was left far behind her in some shitty neighborhood in Queens, where he could kick the shit out of </span>
  <em>
    <span>other</span>
  </em>
  <span> junkies down on their luck to be caught by him. She hated everything about him, from the swagger he walked with to the nasally voice that always made her want to knock his teeth out. Now, she supposed, was the chance to finally do that. Not like the force would ever take him back.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She slipped into the handmade, spider silk vest dyed black to match the rest of her clothes and started fiddling with the holsters and sheaths she had. She didn’t even want to do this hunt, not really. The thought of being up close reminded her of the smell of cheap beer and even cheaper cigarettes. But that wasn’t a choice for her to make, not anymore. So she took an extra pistol, and two more knives, before heading back downstairs.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She hadn’t been expecting to come back to the most painfully awkward silence she thought she’d ever encountered. She looked between the two of them and went, “You two good?” Laelia just nodded, running her hands through her thick black hair nervously, keeping her eyes on her teacup. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Fine,” Birch blurted, looking up from the tape recorder that she had been staring at. She froze, and though Riley couldn’t see her eyes, she got the impression that the archivist was giving her a long look-over. Judging, probably, knowing her type. “I see you’ve prepared yourself adequately,” she said, with a light cough. “Good. Very good. Excellent. We’re, ah, we’re going to… need that.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Riley stared at her for a minute before shrugging. She </span>
  <em>
    <span>could</span>
  </em>
  <span> say something snarky, but that’d just be cruel, so she decided against it. With little hesitation or even movement, Riley moved forward and picked Laelia up so she could rest on her shoulder. “Coming with?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Laelia nodded, her face flushed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Good. Let’s get to the car.”</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>hey welcome to the plot</p><p>find us on tumblr @dragonsateyourtoast and @from-ashes-they-rise</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Hunt Is Coming</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Riley’s car was a four-door sedan, and Birch, of course, was relegated to the backseat. She sat her purse on the seat beside her and folded one leg over the other, staring out the window. Riley backed the car out of the driveway at an ever so slightly alarming speed and started down the road. Some type of rock - </span>
  <em>
    <span>ACDC, that’s what it is </span>
  </em>
  <span>- began to play from the radio.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She didn’t know where the Hunter - Andrew, apparently - was. She couldn’t see that - it was engaged in some type of Fear-related activity that wasn’t aligned with hers, and so, if she tried to Know about it, all she got for her trouble was a severe headache. Occasionally she could get the barest scrap of knowledge, but it happened infrequently enough that she didn’t usually deem it worth the attempt.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bryant McMillan’s address was not a piece of information that was hidden from her. The man had given it to the front desk when he’d come in. Birch had Seen him enter, and had felt the fear radiating off him the second she’d come within five hundred meters of him. She’d arranged for herself to be closest by when someone called for a staff member to take his live statement, it hadn’t taken much convincing to coax him to tell his story into the tape recorder. She </span>
  <em>
    <span>had</span>
  </em>
  <span> been forced to make a show of the recording equipment in the studio failing to properly register his words before pulling out the tape recorder, but it had been worth it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was difficult to explain what it felt like, taking a statement like that. She could feel the words in the air around her, feel the fear seeping through the walls. Whenever she took a live statement from someone, she felt the Eye feeding through her, drinking in their experiences. She could feel what they’d felt, too, sense their emotions, their physical feelings. The Eye devoured it all, hungry for the kind of </span>
  <em>
    <span>feeling</span>
  </em>
  <span> that it couldn’t produce on its own. Later, she knew, she’d probably watch Bryant flee in her dreams, scrambling through decaying hallways from a roaring monster that was always on his heels. She didn’t particularly care. It wasn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>her</span>
  </em>
  <span> problem. It was just another scene in the long, ever-repeating litany of nightmares from those she… fed on.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She was still humming with the residual energy of that statement. It was a feeling that filled her with elation; it felt like when she consigned someone to the Dark, that prickle under her skin and in her fingertips, but this one was behind her eyes, in her throat. If a headache was the sensation of pain, this was the sensation of power.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When they pulled up to Bryant McMillan’s house, Birch narrowed her eyes. The area around it was clear, but when she Looked at the house, there was a sort of… fuzziness to it. It was unclear. Blurry, almost. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Good thing I brought the Hunter. I don’t think I’d be able to find him on my own.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“He’s been here,” she said, out loud. “The… creature formerly known as Andrew. He’s already been here."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Riley put the car in park and stared at the house for a moment, window rolled down. Her nose crinkled up ever so slightly and she tipped her head up, just a tad, nostrils flaring - she was sniffing the air. There was a light in the Hunter’s eyes when Birch looked at her, a gleam like the edge of a knife. “Yup. Been here and gone, but I’ve got him. I can follow him, if you want, but it might get dangerous.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Judging by the last one, no one should attempt to take this creature on alone,” Birch replied. She hoped Riley didn’t take it as an insult - it certainly wasn’t - but she wasn’t confident that the Hunter would be alright going after Andrew on her own. She herself certainly wasn’t a powerhouse like any Hunt avatar would be, but she also had Pitch under her command, and had a few nasty tricks up her sleeves.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Andy Whittaker was always better at what he did than Emilio ever was. I’d say hunting Andrew is at least a two person job, if not more,” Riley said, and there was a hard edge in her voice. Spite? Bitterness, perhaps? </span>
  <em>
    <span>Sorry, Hunter, but you alone won’t be enough.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>They got out, Birch slinging her purse back over her shoulder. The house was quiet, though there was a light on in what could be the kitchen, or perhaps a living room; the blinds were down, so Birch couldn’t see in.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She </span>
  <em>
    <span>did</span>
  </em>
  <span> know that she couldn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>See</span>
  </em>
  <span> in, though, which meant there were no eyes inside. No human eyes, anyway. There were dark corners; books, probably, or the covers of movies in DVD cases. Unimportant. Whatever had happened to Bryant McMillan, there wasn’t enough of his eyes left to function for her Entity’s purposes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The three of them - Riley, Birch, and Laelia, who was currently hanging just behind them, eyes wary as she peered out from the wavy black hair and the dark-colored hoodie she was half-swamped in - approached the house. Riley went first. They reached the door and Birch knocked, but as she expected, there was no response. When Riley tried the handle, it was locked. “Hmm,” Birch said, as Riley looked back to her and Laelia. “Can we… pick the lock?” Riley could pick locks, probably. </span>
  <em>
    <span>She can. She last picked a lock in 2014, when sh -</span>
  </em>
  <span> no. No! </span>
  <em>
    <span>Stop that. I didn’t ask you.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>The Hunter narrowed her eyes at the door and shook her head. “Don’t need to,” she said, and stepped off the front porch, moving around the building. Birch followed her, puzzled, as she rounded the house to the back. There was a locked wooden gate, but Riley reached over and unlatched it from the other side, and when they moved into the backyard the Hunter’s face showed a grim triumph when she beheld the back door.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It had been battered in, though there were splinters scattered across the grass, as if they’d been thrown outwards. Birch blinked at it and then flinched as, abruptly, the scene recreated itself for her - the monster slamming itself into the door, repeatedly, and when there was a breach it reached in and ripped outwards, like a dog digging at a hole. She could see the clawmarks now, gouged around the doorframe. It had been dug out partway, at least until an opening large enough for the creature had been opened up.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Interesting that no one called the cops,” Birch remarked, partly a legitimate musing, and partly as an effort to calm herself, glancing at the nearby houses. “You think someone would’ve heard his screams, or the… racket from the destruction.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Depends on how fast Andrew barrelled through the door,” Riley muttered, almost too low for Birch to hear. She nodded, quietly, though she didn’t think Riley saw.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They moved forward. Riley went first again, her knife out this time, held in front of her at the ready. Within the back hallway was a mess of shadow and stark illumination from whatever room was still lit, and Birch immediately felt a surge of relief seeing the darkness. Riley had said that the creature formerly known as Andy Whittaker was gone, but she still preferred being able to summon Pitch if she needed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The room they went to, obviously, was the only one with a light on, and Birch could smell the blood in the air before she saw it spattered across the ground. Rounding the corner into the living room showed them the truth - across the room, in the tiled kitchen area, lay the mauled remains of Bryant McMillan. He’d been torn apart, scraps of flesh hurled with such ferocity and power that they clung to the walls even now, with impact splatters of blood seeping into the paint around them. Of his head, there was almost no trace, except for the smear of gray paste and shattered bone fragments across the tile floor and cabinet doors of the kitchen.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Birch tried not to look too much. Not because she was disgusted, no, but because she knew if she looked too much, she would start to feel what he’d felt, and she had no interest in that. “Gross, she commented. Laelia moved silently around the furniture, gaze roving over the walls, the ceiling, the floor, the scattered mess of Bryant McMillan’s body.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Cleaner than I expected,” Riley said, after a moment, hands on her hips.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Clean - “ Birch paused, looking over at her. “Sorry?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Andy Whitt, as we called him, was a brute back when he was police in Queens, kicking the shit out of any ne’er-do-well who was unfortunate enough to be spotted by him. He liked breaking shit.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Birch pursed her lips, narrowing her eyes at the stained carpet. “I see,” she said, quietly. “Just as well his rampage will be ending soon.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was obvious they wouldn’t get much out of staying here. Birch was the first to turn and make her way back outside, into the fresher air (which she gulped in with relief). When the others joined her, she paused, glancing back in. “Should we… call the police?” she asked, after a moment.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No,” Riley answered, with a sharp shake of her head. “Someone else will eventually.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Fair enough. </span>
  <em>
    <span>In a few days the neighbors will likely notice something is wrong and call for the cops, who will be unable to do anything with the case and give up, making this a brutal and unsolved murder that will puzzle true crime enthusiasts in a few years. Those groups will be fascinated by the case and unable to find any cause save wild animals or perhaps cryptids, which will make this case one even the serial killer enthusiasts are hesitant to approach.</span>
  </em>
  <span> Birch nodded. “Then… we follow?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, </span>
  <em>
    <span>yes,”</span>
  </em>
  <span> Riley growled, a rumble deep in the back of her throat like the low murmur of a tiger. “We follow.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They got back in the car, and this time Riley turned the music off and put all the windows down, driving slower than Birch expected. But her sense of direction was unerring, and she proceeded with a slow, deliberate precision through the streets, even over the freeway for a bit, until they rolled to a stop in front of a tall, blank white building.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“Here?”</span>
  </em>
  <span> Birch said, baffled. This was the old cold storage building - the place where Bryant McMillan had had his first encounter with the monster. “But… it was already here before.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Probably hunkers down here if something goes wrong, or it just comes back here as his new home since I doubt he’ll be getting back into his Queens apartment.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Like a lair, or a nest?” Birch frowned at the building. “If you’re right, that </span>
  <em>
    <span>does</span>
  </em>
  <span> maybe mean we’ll be at a severe disadvantage inside…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The man who died, Bryant, said on that tape recording that he and his companions required powerful flashlights to pierce the darkness within, correct? Would that not help us due to your… Associations?” Laelia asked, looking the building up and down.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That was true. “The Dark won’t let him out. Not if I don’t want it to. You’re right.” Birch stared up at the building and nodded, then took a breath and got out. “Well, no sense in waiting.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They moved in, Riley in front, Laelia behind her, and Birch in the rear. Whenever Riley’s eyes caught the light, they flashed a pale monochrome gold, glinting in the darkness. Birch felt the shadows lurking through the building and already felt Pitch’s presence stalking the darker hallways. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Yes, my dear. Good.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“He’s a few floors up, I’m pretty sure. Fucker, if he goes out a window to escape I’m gonna be pissed.” Riley wrinkled her nose, as if the smell of the area was distasteful to her. Birch couldn’t detect anything out of the ordinary, but of course, she didn’t have the senses of a Hunter.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It didn’t take long for them to find the spot where Vivian Fenetry had died. Blood had pooled on the floor and gone rotten there, and while there was no longer a body - the police had taken it - the stains were still visible on the concrete. Again, Birch kept her eyes up. She wasn’t interested in reliving the feelings of Vivian Fenetry in the moments before her death, including all of her physical pain.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>As they walked, Birch heard the skittering of tiny legs all around her; flickers of movement caught at the corners of her eyes as she saw spiders pour from the walls, scuttling to doorways and windows and beginning a back-and-forth dance, laying down lines of silk. Some of them stayed nearby, crawling along the ceiling and walls near Laelia, and Birch shuddered, hoping none of them would get too close to her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The further they went into the building, the more Birch felt a tightness in her chest growing into a nervous wariness, an anticipation. The fear of being hunted. The fear of sudden violence. No, that wasn’t right. What was she -</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Up ahead,” Riley murmured softly. She sniffed as her eyes searched the darkness, flaring her nostrils, moving her head back and forth in tiny, jerky motions.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They were on the fifth floor when Riley drew her attention to the empty area before them. Birch refocused on the situation and immediately reached out into the Dark around her, grabbing at the corners of the room. Unfortunately, it was fairly well-lit, but there were still shadows here and there. It might be enough for Pitch to show up. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Maybe.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Could she cover the windows? Maybe. If she had the time. She could pull on the Dark to cover them, though such an overt expression of the unnatural would cost her a lot of energy. Still, if it made Pitch able to show… no, wait. The spiders. She already saw them at work, beginning to block out some of the light with their webs. Briefly, she wondered what it looked like from the outside, but she knew for an absolute certainty that there wasn’t anyone looking. That was good for all of them. The monster couldn’t get out through those windows either. In the darker corners of the rooms, near the windows that had already been covered, she felt the shadows rising, taking on a liquid thickness they hadn’t had before she’d entered. Good. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Good.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Through her thoughts came a soft hissing noise. She recognized it instantly; she’d heard the sound in Bryant McMillan’s memories, when he’d told his story to her. It was the breath of the monster, and after a few seconds it was joined by that rattling sound that she knew would come. “It’s here,” she said, quietly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Riley’s gaze roved across the warehouse until she stopped, eyes fixed on a single point. “Ah, there you are, fucker. Hello, Officer.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Birch felt her heart leap in her throat. She carefully set her purse down on the ground, out of the way where she wouldn’t trip on it, and called the Dark. At the same time, she closed her eyes, then reached up and pulled off her sunglasses, carefully stowing them in a side pocket on her pants.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Where are you?” she murmured, opening her Eyes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The monster was lurking in a corner. Sad, really, that it thought it could hide from her. That it thought it could hide at all. She felt the Dark wash over it and forced herself to pull back - she didn’t want to obscure Riley’s sight. That would be no help at all.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>As the room got darker, she saw Laelia move backwards out of the corner of her eye and nodded in thanks to the Weaver.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The monster that was all that remained of Andrew Whittaker moved.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It came forwards, from behind the pillar, with its chest pressed low against the ground and its forelimbs stretching out too far to pull it along. She got a good long look at it as it slunk around them, head turned to meet Riley’s gaze.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The body’s muscles bulged underneath distended white skin, with pale, almost translucent hairs spread too thin across it, like a mangy dog. Its back legs were far too large, which forced it to walk with its spine folded almost in half, like a particularly distressed cat. The limbs’ muscles were just as oversized as those of the chest, and the hands and feet had been almost stretched out and extended into long, pale claws that gouged at whatever surface the beast moved on. The hands were genuinely unsettling; the fingers appeared to have been gnawed off, replaced with spikes of bone that cut into the floor.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The beasts neck was thick and extended a little further than it should have, and the head was rounded, with only a hint of an animalistic muzzle. The mouth, though, no longer resembled anything human at all; the jaw stuck out too far, with sharp, haphazard teeth poking up at odd angles. They all appeared to be canines, fangs. There were too many of them.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Too many teeth. Too many teeth…</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>The beast’s eyes had been stretched out, to allow it to see both in front of it and to the sides; Birch could see its irises, a bloodshot yellow, flicking back and forth between the ground in front of it and the Hunter that had found it. She watched it carefully. Its hissing breath came from the two long slit nostrils that ran up to its forehead, but the rattle… the rattle came from its throat which…</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Birch peered closer. Yes, it opened far further back than it should have. She would have to watch out for that if it came at her. She reckoned the actual jaw of this monster was probably a foot and a half long or so, opening deep into the neck.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“In my experience,” Birch murmured quietly, “even a Hunter fully lost does not look like… this.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It sure fuckin doesn’t!” Riley shouted, voice caught between distress and disgust, and then the monster tensed and pivoted on one back leg, and the fight began.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It leaped towards them, front limbs out, and immediately the three of them scattered. Birch caught a flash of movement out of the corner of her eye as Laelia slipped behind a pillar, yanking her hoodie over her head; she didn’t have time to look any further as she hurled herself to the left. Riley went right, and the abomination spun in place, claws tearing into the floor. As they did, Birch saw them twist and pull at the stumps of its hands, and it howled, a spit-filled squall that sprayed the pillar nearest it with a fine mist of milky-colored saliva.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Thankfully, it went for Riley, who was more used to this sort of thing. Birch headed for the nearest pillar that wasn’t Laelia’s - </span>
  <em>
    <span>how did she know which pillar was Laelia’s? She hadn’t Known it -</span>
  </em>
  <span> and slipped into the shadows behind it. This half of the room was becoming drenched in darkness, and she glanced over and froze for a moment as she saw Laelia, pressed against the pillar, deftly weaving some sort of intricate double cat’s-cradle of white threads that stretched into the air, strung between all of her hands.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>That’s the wrong amount of hands for a human being,</span>
  </em>
  <span> Birch thought dumbly, before the hiss of the Dark near her warned her that she had to pay attention to something else. Riley had darted to the side of the room in a roll, ducking underneath another swipe from the monster. It loped forwards.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Birch leaned around the pillar. Across the room, more spiders crisscrossed the window, and she felt the Dark ooze up from the ground. She twitched her fingers and felt it surge forwards, grabbing at the monster’s back legs, climbing up its skin. It tried to make a leap for Riley, but the Darkness pulled it back, stretching like rubber and pulling it backwards. When it turned its head to stare in confusion at the black substance, Riley went forwards again. From across the room Birch could hear the low, car-motor purring deep in her throat, and spotted the snarl on her face as she lashed out with the knife, drawing it in a bright line across the monster’s throat where the artery should’ve been. Unfortunately, that was closer to the corner of its mouth than its jugular, and it split its jaw open and turned its face with a human scream. Riley kept moving, out of its range before it had a chance to react. It now had a bright red line scored across its pale flesh, but it looked more irritated than anything.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>This did not seem to phase Riley, who whirled into a standing position and pulled her gun, aiming and firing with inhuman precision. The bullet thudded solidly into the monster’s head, blowing away part of its thick skull. As it managed to kick its way free of the Dark around its feet, it shrieked, crouching and surging forwards so low to the ground it almost seemed as if it were just pushing itself across the floor. It reached out, grabbing for Riley’s legs, but the Hunter was too quick for it; she jumped backwards a few times and fired the gun again, this time catching the monster in its shoulder. That, predictably, did not do a whole lot.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The two of them were in the center of the room now. Birch gave up on waiting for the spiders to plunge the room into darkness and sent the thick, brackish liquid up into the lattices they’d formed on the windows, cutting the light off. In that darkness, she felt Pitch emerge, jaws open wide. She moved to the edge of the room.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The monster made yet another attempt to leap at Riley, and this time she moved easily out of its way, fluid like water, and behind one of the support posts. The creature slammed into it, and dust fell from the ceiling. Riley took that moment to grab hold of an old metal box, some kind of filing drawer, and pick it up, swinging it over herself and around to clang onto the monster’s skull. It stumbled, stunned, and she let go of the box, then jabbed forward with her knife, plunging it neatly into one of the creature’s eyes. The resulting scream made Birch’s eyes water.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She could see the hazy images of its possible movements, and if she focused her Eyes enough, she could see which one it would pursue. She watched as Pitch sank its teeth into the monster’s back leg, then let go and melt back into the liquid shadows as the misshapen mess flailed one clawed paw in its direction.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The images of the future, suddenly, went very solid. Birch felt the mist around her eyes as she blinked, felt the crystalline certainty of the future she Saw coming. The monster would limp backwards, past Laelia’s support pillar, and it was about to spot her and - after a moment’s hesitation - feint at Riley before juking sideways and bringing one of its front claws down on Laelia.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Birch was certain that it wasn’t Laelia’s strings that tugged on her. It was her decision to run forwards, her decision to sweep the Dark around her in a cloak that halted the monster’s movements for </span>
  <em>
    <span>just</span>
  </em>
  <span> long enough. She pulled hard on Pitch, yanked it forwards, and when the monster spotted Laelia, she was already almost there.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Riley saw the feint coming, but didn’t see why until too late. Birch Saw her eyes go wide as she spotted Laelia on the far side of the support pillar, in the monster’s path </span>
  <em>
    <span>Don’t worry,</span>
  </em>
  <span> Birch said, as she melted out of the Dark in between the Weaver and the abomination. </span>
  <em>
    <span>I Saw it coming.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>She raised her right arm as the monster came down with its claws. The Dark surged up, slamming into the monster’s chest, and knocked it off course. She underestimated, though, the force of its attack, and felt its fingers dig into her arm, slashing through fabric and flesh like butter. They caught in the bone, for which she was thankful, and the positioning of her arm meant they stopped just short of her face.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That sent her to the ground, though, hard onto her side. She felt the claws tear through her shoulder as well and barely managed to suppress a cry as she hit the concrete.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There were three gunshots and a vicious snarl, and Birch Saw Riley shoot the monster in both hands, then its face, and dash forwards. It tried to intercept her with a front paw, but she ducked to the side and jumped onto its side, knife first. The blade sank deep into the monster’s skull and knocked it backwards. Riley dug her hands into the monster’s skin to keep her grip.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Pitch sank its fangs into the monster’s hindquarters. Riley yanked the knife out and stabbed it in again, clinging to the creature. The blade flashed, in and out, and Birch felt the monster’s other eye go dark.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Once it was blinded, well… then it was easy prey. Riley wedged the knife into its jaw and cracked the bone, then wrenched the lower jaw off and hurled it to the side before spearing the abomination through the roof of its mouth and into the brain. A soft, wet keening came from its throat, and Riley shoved the knife deeper, hissing through her teeth. After that, it stopped moving.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Birch let the Dark subside. She didn’t have the energy to keep it around her, and though she liked the comfort of the soft shadows, that wasn’t what she needed right now. She hissed, trying to pull herself up, but her right arm was entirely useless. Her Eyes blinked shut, one by one, their soft silvery glow fading from where they’d been floating after a few seconds.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“Fuck!”</span>
  </em>
  <span> Riley shouted, finally stumbling back from the corpse of the monster. “Jesus fuck, Andy, didn’t think you had it in you.” She turned, chest heaving, and glanced over to Laelia.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Laelia was unharmed, and stood next to the pillar, the silk threads between her fingers coming undone from whatever fervent weaving she’d been doing. Riley’s eyes passed over her for a moment, and paused for just a second, as if she’d expected to see something different. Then her gaze moved to Birch.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, </span>
  <em>
    <span>fuck</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Birch managed to pull herself into a sitting position, one leg tucked underneath her. “Hhh,” she said, and went to touch her arm, but laying a hand on the spot only sent a white-hot jolt of pain through her flesh. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Nope.</span>
  </em>
  <span> She needed, she needed -</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Riley,” she hissed, through gritted teeth, “I need my purse.” A wave of pain spread through her body and she choked back a soft sound. She hadn’t hurt this badly since the time in 2005 when she’d been gored by a wild boar on accident. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Fuck,</span>
  </em>
  <span> it hurt.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Wh-” a sharp look from Laelia told her to just do it. “Fine, okay. Uh, darling can you weave her a bandage? She might need one.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She needed - she needed her bag, she’d used her Eyes and that took far more out of her than she could afford to have lost right now unless she got herself a statement, and fast. “Bag,” she snapped, feeling a prickling sense of annoyance, but she wasn’t sure anyone heard her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Riley grabbed the purse, ignoring Birch’s snapped command, and Laelia started up her weaving again. “Yes, dear, but it won’t do for real treatment. I’m not even sure it’ll prevent infection.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She opened the purse and handed it to Birch. “Need my help..?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes, I do,” Birch growled, feeling a surge of irritation almost hotter than the pain. Obviously she needed help. She was almost </span>
  <em>
    <span>bleeding out</span>
  </em>
  <span> on the floor, with multiple wounds that </span>
  <em>
    <span>cut to her bone</span>
  </em>
  <span>. “I’m right </span>
  <em>
    <span>fucking</span>
  </em>
  <span> handed. Inside there’s - hhnnnh - a folder, green, and a tape recorder. I need both. No. I need one set of papers from the folder.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Riley blinked for a second before doing as she was instructed. She even looked like she felt guilty as she handed Birch what she asked for without a word.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Birch fumbled with the recorder first, balancing it one leg, and leaned over for a second to hiss a furious curse to herself before taking the papers with her working hand and giving them a quick glance. This wasn’t a statement she’d had before; it would do. She nodded, curtly, and cleared her throat before hitting the record button on her tape recorder. There was a new tape in it. She knew there would be. She hadn’t changed the tape manually.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She took a few breaths, steadying her breath. “Statement of Ronan Seidel,” she began, and instantly felt the Beholding quietly take her mouth and throat, guiding her words, letting her speak. “Mhh. Of Ronan Seidel, regarding an oddly patterned silk scarf that belonged to his mother. Original statement given June 14th, 1932. Audio recording by Birch Halloway, archival assistant at the Usher Foundation, Albany, New York.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Riley take a step back, face going very confused. She looked to Laelia and Birch saw her mouth form the words </span>
  <em>
    <span>what the fuck?</span>
  </em>
  <span> silently, to Laelia.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Statement begins,” Birch said. Already she could feel the pain fading somewhat, though she knew it wouldn’t be gone entirely, even when she was finished. She closed her eyes, then opened them again, leaning down to be a little closer to the tape recorder. Ronan Seidel’s voice was accented, thicker than hers was, with a slight clotted sound around the edges of some of his consonants.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“My mam, Isobel Watson, got married in 1903. I wasn’t there, obviously. Apparently the wedding was very nice. She married my father, a businessman, and they got along quite well, which was a mite unusual, but very welcome for her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The reason this matters is because of her scarf. She got it as a wedding present. I can tell you what it looks like even now, ‘cos she kept it for her entire life. It was blue satin, a deep blue so dark it was almost purple, with tiny little threads of white embroidery. I remember those the best, because the thread was so fine it was almost invisible. Thinner than a hair, it seemed. I always thought it was pretty. Almost mesmerising. The white threads always went somewhere in that scarf, always flowing from one place to the next, connecting and splitting and merging again. The patterns never stopped, never started, never ended.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When I was a kid, she mostly wore it out on special occasions. Fancy parties and the like, where she went with my dad. Though sometimes she wore it to visit friends. I can’t remember who, I’m sorry; I don’t think I ever learned the name.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The pain in Birch’s arm and shoulder was fading. She could feel a cool, soothing sensation, spreading through her; the influence of her god. She was vaguely aware of Riley and Laelia staring at her, but at this point, she was unable to turn to face them, or react to them at all. No - she was recording.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I really didn’t have any sort of strange experiences with my mam’s scarf, not when I was a boy. I just got a few looks at it sometimes, and it sometimes seemed… too pretty, too hypnotizing, almost, to look at. Like it drew me in, made me look at it. I do remember once I found it lying atop her bed one afternoon while I was playing in her bedroom after lunch, and picked it up. I remember running it through my hands, and when I looked up again, it was dark outside and no one was home. I don’t remember the time passing. All I know is that everything was shadowy, as it had become night outside, when I wasn’t looking. I remember my thoughts at that moment were of the silliest thing - that if my parents came home and found that I’d been playing in their bedroom, that they would scold me. That’s what I was worried about.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So I put the scarf down, and turned around. When I did, I almost jumped out of my skin. My mother was standing in the doorway, watching me. She wasn’t moving, or speaking, just… watching. I told her I was sorry I’d been in the bedroom, but she didn’t answer me. When she finally did move, it was to walk past me, to the bed, and pick up the scarf again. She held it up to her face and breathed in, her eyes closed, as if it held some precious scent.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I knew I wasn’t supposed to be in there, so I left the room. I always thought later that I’d just misjudged the time, and imagined my mam’s odd behaviour. I was only a kid, after all, and children have memories that are malleable. They never really know what they experienced. That’s why you can never trust the stories a child tells, and I didn’t trust my own memories, either. Not really.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’d almost forgotten about the incident until just a few years ago, in March 1929. I’m twenty-seven now, so I was twenty-four, and had gotten a job at a construction company in Gloversville, in the upstate. My mam lived in Utica. She’d moved there, a bit before, with my dad. She didn’t seem to like it much. Said she missed her friends back in Rochester. She always seemed so sad, whenever I visited her. At the time I thought it was because I didn’t visit enough, and tried to go and see her as often as I could, but it was a ways away, so I couldn’t make it more than a time or two a month at best. My father was almost always out when I visited, and then he was always out, and I didn’t see him. Not that I minded too much, he got irritable in his later years.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Back then, I thought he was simply out on business, or with his friends or something. Now, though, I know better. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It was in March that I first visited and found my mam acting oddly. I’d come up, and knocked on the door as usual, but she didn’t answer me. When I tried the door I found it unlocked, so I went on in and called for her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“She was in the sitting room. She was all dressed up, like she was going out to visit, but she didn’t have anywhere to go, I knew that. She had on a nice dress, and that scarf, tucked up against her throat and almost up against her face. She was facing the television. It wasn’t on, but she was staring at it intently, as if she were watching something of great interest.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I asked her what she was doing. She stayed silent for a moment, then looked over at me, and I saw confusion in her eyes. She paused and shook her head, and then looked down at herself. ‘I’m not sure,’ she told me, and she got up and left the room.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“She was getting on in years, so I thought maybe she’d been watching the television and it had gone off while she’d drifted off into thoughts or something. I went and looked at it, but it wasn’t on. Hadn’t been. The only thing I found was a spider spinning a web across its surface. Apparently she hadn’t used it in a </span>
  <em>
    <span>very</span>
  </em>
  <span> long while.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Maybe it would have been nothing, if that had been the only time she’d been acting strange. But the occurrences just got more common after that. I would come up and go into the house, and find her caught in the middle of various actions - cooking meals, or watering her plants, or something. But she’d be stopped, frozen, as if watching something fascinating just in front of her eyes. And she always wore that scarf.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“At the time I just thought it was because she was fond of it. Even if I’d known better, there wasn’t much I could’ve done about it. I tried to take it from her once, to get it cleaned, but she snapped at me and told me to leave and let her and her friends be.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I remembered that phrase. It wasn’t like she’d had anybody else at the house with her. But she’d said it with such confidence that I didn’t even question her. I just apologized, and gave it back, and left her, like she’d asked me to. She seemed confused when I told her I was going, almost like she didn’t remember she’d told me to. I think I thought her memory was just getting hazy, though it did seem a bit soon for that particular type of problem to arise for her. She was fifty-one.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“As time went by, I noticed that she cleaned her house less and less. She spent all her time wandering about with that scarf on, and when I went up and visited with her, she seemed distant, almost hazy. She’d stopped dusting, and there were always cobwebs in her windows and on the walls and light fixtures. There were even some on her bed once when I helped her to her room after a particularly taxing day. I told her I could clean, but she just looked confused, and asked me why.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“At that point, I’d found out that my father wasn’t just absent when I stopped by. He’d gone missing, at some point in the year 1929, and hardly anyone had noticed except his workplace and the few friends he’d still had. Apparently, with his rising temper and unsavoury habits, he’d become rather unpleasant to be around. I felt bad about it, and of course hoped they would find him, but I didn’t expect much. I think his vanishing hurt my mother deeply, or at least… I thought it did at the time.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“One of the interactions I remember most strongly was only a month or so before her death. I’d come up on a weekend, as I’d started doing, though my coworkers certainly didn’t like my constant absences. That day she greeted me warmly, and invited me in. I was quite happy to see that she was more active than she’d been in a while. She was baking, actually, some type of muffin. I thought that was very grandmotherly of her, though of course, I didn’t have a wife or any children to speak of.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“She went to check on her construction, and I wandered around the house. I don’t know what I expected to find, but when I tried to enter the sitting room only to come face to face with the largest spiderweb I’d ever seen stretched like a sticky, dust-coated fishing net across the doorway, I was repulsed. I went and got the broom to knock it down. I raised it, and swept it through the web, breaking it immediately. As I did, though, I felt something on my hands.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I looked down. When I did, I saw tiny black dots crawling across the surface of the broom, and over my hands. I didn’t know where they were coming from, but as I watched, I saw them scurry onto my trousers, into my sleeves. I knew what they were before I even registered it. Spiders. Tiny, scuttling spiders, shiny and black.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I couldn’t help it - I let out a cry, of course, and dropped the broom. It clattered to the floor and lay where it was and I was quick to shake my hands vigorously, trying to rid myself of the unwanted pests. Had I known my mother’s broom was full of </span>
  <em>
    <span>spiders</span>
  </em>
  <span>, I never would have picked it up, that’s for certain.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It was as I was trying to get those horrible little creatures out of my sleeves that my mam came back out of the kitchen. She walked, unhurried, and she had draped around her neck - loosely, now - that same scarf. She watched me for a second, and when I finally looked at her, she seemed more disappointed than anything. I remember what she said like it was yesterday. She looked at me, and she said, as calm and quiet as anything, ‘Hush. You’ll disturb the little ones.’”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That, I think, unnerved me more than anything else she’d ever done. I left. There were still spiders in my jacket. I think I took it off, and threw it into the bushes outside the house. I left it there. It wasn’t worth it to try and get it back.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“My mother died just under a month later. Brain tumor, the doctors said. Something about a mass inside her skull that had pushed on her brain until she’d had a seizure, and nobody had been at her house to phone for the emergency medical technicians. I wasn’t there when it happened. When I asked them what was to be done with my mam’s body, they paused a very long time before saying that a unit from the CDC had already ordered them to cremate her. Somehow, I wasn’t surprised. I’d almost expected something like that, though I… couldn’t possibly tell you why.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Naturally, all her possessions passed to me. Including the scarf. I suppose they’d taken it off her body when they’d found her, and left it behind, as I found it on the floor of the house. All the cobwebs were up, but with her gone, I didn’t feel any sort of need to remove them. I picked the scarf up while looking around the place. It looked as vibrant and beautiful as it ever had, despite being nearly thirty years old, possibly more. I don’t know why, but I held it up to my face and breathed it in. It smelled like my mother’s perfume.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I suppose that’s why I kept it. I meant to donate it, or possibly sell it, as I was sure it was quite valuable and I’m certainly never going to wear it, but… it does make me think of my mam. So I still have it, safe and bundled on the mantlepiece at my house. I know it’s a place that’s a bit dusty for it, and I don’t want it to get dirty, but I keep forgetting to clean up there.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Statement ends.” Birch let out a long, slow breath, but she wasn’t finished yet. There was some smaller, handwritten script at the bottom of the page. She blinked slowly at it. Behind her, she felt Riley and Laelia standing stock-still, and though she detected a bizarre amount of awkward stillness from them, she couldn’t yet turn around to look at them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Notes from Foundation investigator Charity Webb,” she read. “Apparently, when this statement was re-filed in 1935, the Foundation attempted to contact Mr. Seidel for a follow-up interview on the scarf, it was discovered that he had died earlier that year, apparently - like his mother - of a brain tumor. No scarf matching the description provided by Mr. Seidel was found inside his house, and the CDC had already scoured the house for any other possible traces of contamination that had passed between Mr. Seidel, his mother, and anyone they may have come into contact with. Aside from a few off-color jokes about Charity’s investigations into this particular artifact, no further action was taken, and the case was closed.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There. That was it. She was done. Birch closed her eyes. “End recording,” she said, and as she clicked the tape recorder off, she felt the ache in her head finally fade away.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her arm still burned, but when she glanced over to it, she saw now that the previously bone-deep gouges had sealed themselves to a point where they were only bleeding lightly - they were shallow cuts, half an inch deep at the most, and while they still stung, they were nowhere near life-threatening. They’d left behind some rather nasty-looking scars, though.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>After a moment, she opened her eyes and finally turned herself around to face the others. She was feeling much better now, after that, though obviously her strength wasn’t at the level she’d had after Bryant McMillan’s statement. “Right. Okay. That’s a lot better. Thank you for your help,” she said, to Riley, as she set the statement down. “But, hm, if either of you have a bandage, that would be - that would be great.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Right, here you are,'' Laelia said, and from between her hands produced a mass of white silk.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are there spiders in it,” Birch said, flatly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Birch narrowed her eyes, but couldn’t tell if she was being serious. “There’d better not be,” she muttered, deciding to trust the Weaver just this once. “If there are, I am going to… hmm. Lose my shit.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Riley covered her mouth as she snickered. Laelia knelt by her side and Birch lifted her right arm - which still took both hands to do, as the muscles screamed when she tried to use them with their severed connections - to allow her to first tear away her tattered sleeve, then wrap the silk around her wounds. Birch wasn’t sure what Laelia did, but she did </span>
  <em>
    <span>something</span>
  </em>
  <span> and when she took her hands away, there was a seamless band of white silk pressed snugly against Birch’s skin, and she swore she could feel little pinpricks of pain from the edges of the wounds. “Did you sew those shut?” she asked, after a second.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ah.” Birch nodded, slightly unnerved that it had been so fast, and that she hadn’t noticed somehow. “...thank you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It only took a few minutes.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“A few -” </span>
  <em>
    <span>Damn it, damn Web-children and their ability to distort perception…</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>She paused. “What did you do with that scarf?” she asked, after a moment.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ve not the slightest idea what you’re talking about.” Laelia’s even gaze was on the corner of the room, where several spiders scuttled back to their cobweb lairs.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>After a few minutes, Birch found herself able to stand. She put the statement folder and recorder back into her purse, nodding tiredly when she saw that she now owned two tape recorders instead of just one, and picked the purse up, slinging it over her </span>
  <em>
    <span>good</span>
  </em>
  <span> shoulder this time. It still tugged at her wounds, and she winced.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then she turned her attention to the remnants of the monster that was once Andrew Whittaker.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So,” she said, stepping carefully over to it. The spiders had stopped messing with the windows, and there was enough light that she could easily make out most of the details of the body. It was not pleasant to look at. “A question, Riley.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Mm?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Was he always… like this?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Hunter shook her head. “No. He was leagues better than Emilio, but he had enough control not to get kicked off the force. And he was </span>
  <em>
    <span>never</span>
  </em>
  <span> that strong or fast.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Birch nodded. “Hmm,” she said. “So there is a… differential, it seems, in the power he has now, versus the power he should have.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She knelt and looked at the body. Laelia moved up next to her, and together they stared the corpse over.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The limbs are all wrong,” Birch murmured, shaking her head. “The feet are all too long, the spine too curved. The front hands… he removed the fingers, and added those long bones to what was left of his hands -”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She went quiet.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Laelia glanced at her. “The bones in his hands are… Wrong,” she said, and when Birch looked over at her, it was obvious she had come to the same conclusion.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Someone - who I cannot See, because they are </span>
  <em>
    <span>hidden</span>
  </em>
  <span> from me virtue of belonging to Someone </span>
  <em>
    <span>Else</span>
  </em>
  <span>  - changed him,” Birch spat, feeling nearly out of breath as she tried to speak. Was it the hatred of this </span>
  <em>
    <span>wretched</span>
  </em>
  <span> entity? Just the anger of this kind of violation against a form that, while it had already belonged to a Fear, hadn’t been intended for this? “Someone altered him. Ruined him. Whatever he was before, it got lost in the… transformation. It twisted him. Into… </span>
  <em>
    <span>this.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Laelia, next to her, nodded, her calm face going hard.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“There’s only one power that’ll do this to a creature,” Birch growled. “And if we know what they look like, we can find them. Make them stop.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Next to her, Laelia folded her arms - all four of them - and looked down at the corpse. “The Spiral,” she finally hissed, soft voice drenched with an unexpected amount of hatred.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Riley looked between them. Birch looked up and met her warm brown eyes with her own black and silver. “Keep your gun handy,” she said, feeling the cold, ruthless disgust on her tongue. “The hunt’s not over yet.”</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>wow that was long</p><p>find us on tumblr @dragonsateyourtoast and @from-ashes-they-rise, and on pillowfort at Falcolmreynolds and AlphaGheist</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>